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Busoga Health Sensitization Network has launched a two year campaign that will help the people of Uganda especially those from Busoga region know the importance of having safe water and the campaign will start off officially on Jan 15th 2012

VISIONThe vision of Busoga Health Sensitization Network -Uganda is to sensitize the people of Busoga in particular and Uganda in general about various health issues that affect their lives with the aim to render ideal services essential for sustainable community Development.

MISSIONOur mission is to create health awareness through sensitization by advocating for good health as an engine for economic development through accessing government development programmes that benefit the region and Uganda as a whole.

OBJECTIVES

1. To promote health awareness and personal hygiene through sensitization.
2. Improve sanitation through creating awareness and sensitization.
3. Improve nutrition, food security and household income through sustainable production for market.
4. Carryout research on health related and development issues.
5. To hire, train, coach and mentor our staff to ensure attainment of exemporary voluntary community service.WHY THE NEED TO ADDRESS THE JIGGER INFECTION IN BUSOGA?Let us briefly explain what a jigger is and what Jiggers can actually do to an infected person;
To many, jiggers might be just another of the many irritating intrusions that encroach on your body and leaves you with an itch. However, far-fetched as it might sound, jiggers are fatal. A series of health implications will result from jigger infestation and their penultimate result is death.

Once they latch on your body, they will move around looking for a good place to feed, usually a thin layer of skin. And you will know that they you are infected when the itching starts. This is usually within the first 12-24 hours. The bites’ only initial hazard is itching and irritation, but it’s out of this that lethal effects will erupt.

Jiggers start feeding on its victim immediately they go in. After the jigger has entered your body, it will start sucking your blood and will reduce your blood amount. And when this persists for a long time, he/she can become anaemic because his/her blood is not enough. Blood loss can also be as a result of piercing one’s body in an attempt to fish the jiggers out.
Jiggers are the perfect parasites, whatever you feed on, they feed on as well, they will feed on the food that’s carried in your blood stream and in the end, you become malnourished because they suck away body fluids, you will also find that people with jiggers will become dehydrated after sometime.

Jiggers also resultantly lead to the death of body tissue, a condition described as gangrene; when jiggers suck blood, they limit it from reaching certain parts of the body. This deprives them of oxygen and they end up drying and decaying. This is especially in parts where many jiggers have accumulated like in the heel of the foot.

Although they attack all parts of the body, jiggers are usually prevalent in toes and hands, which are usually their first point of contact. As a result, toe and finger nails are the most affected parts.

Jiggers will also limit the growth of finger and toes nails; after having jiggers for some time, you will lose your nails, after the nails, limbs come next. With the limited blood flow to the jigger infested areas, and gangrene, a jigger patient might undergo auto amputation- where parts of the limbs fall off, and the end result is a limb looking like that of a leprosy patient.

The sights of open wounds are common place with jigger infested body parts. Most people use pins to get out jiggers and this leaves them with wounds. These wounds might become septic; when a jigger dies from inside the skin as well, it develops puss and the tissue becomes septic, because of the open wounds, tetanus can easily result.

It is the combined result of these effects that put a jigger infested person on high way to death; one can die from either dehydration, tetanus, or anaemia, all being conditions that result from jigger infestation.

From the use of pins to get rid of jiggers as well, the chances of spreading HIV/Aids, an incurable condition, from one patient to another are increased. This is because in places where jiggers are most prevalent-rural areas, there is no enough money to buy enough pins to use, and as they share the pins therefore, the HIV virus is given a clear passage, hence death.

We have however been faced with many challenges in reaching out to the most vulnerable who, un fortunately stay deep in the villages of the vast Busoga. We especially lack the capacity to transport our staff to assess the impact so far made and carryout our routine work of sensitization. Therefore it is our pleasure that some good heartedly individuals, families, companies, organisations and sympathizers come up as partners in any form to help this forgotten area. We appeal to whoever can contribute any item in terms of equipment and drugs/disinfectants to come and support this initiative.
We in particular hope to work with government and other related organisations as partners in implementing health and development related programmes with in our capacity. As we say ‘Health is Wealth’

We are grateful to those individuals and companies which have come out with support in this cause. We thank Quality Clean Limited for provision of fumigation services. Please keep it up.

ACTION PLAN
This organisation is voluntary based. We therefore expect to work with the local communities in carrying out our work and as such we expect maximum cooperation from all stake holders in the region to access the necessary information and reach out to the targeted group of people.

In this initiative we still need to carryout research in parts of the region to assess the particular health problem other than the jiggers affecting the people, find out the various government programmes on the ground and see how we can help in a harmonious way to make the programme more effective. This is because during our visits it was established that some parts do suffer from other entomological parasites that cause epidemics like bedbugs, lice, mosquitoes, cockroaches, fleas, termites, rats, bats e.t.c. This is to be done in areas that have not yet benefited from our physical presence though we do carryout sensitization programmes on Radio Stations.

For the issue of Jiggers, it is a matter of identifying the individual but it’s a general problem across the region. We hope to work hand in hand with various District Health officers in other health matters such as Immunization, HIV/AIDS awareness, distribution of materials like mosquito nets, provision of vital information, and helping the people in rural areas of Busoga have access to prevention kits since it has been noted that Jigger infestation can result in other health complications.

We intend to initially start with skills building that will empower our staff with the capacity of promoting awareness, prevention and providing vital information to the targeted communities. The project will start with the very affected communities deep in the rural areas who will be mobilized and educated about sanitation and hygienic activities that include: clearing and sweeping houses, store of produce, control of rodents especially rats, avoid sharing residence with poultry, animals like pigs and treatments of the already affected persons as the case may be.

Prevention and treatment kits will be availed to the communities by our trained staff with the help of volunteers trained by Busoga Health Sensitization Network. County to county campaigns will be launched after the district legislators have been informed of the presence of the implementing organisation in the districts.

Our target will be to distribute enough materials to the infected people that we think can eradicate the already existing infections. We however believe the sensitization programme will be the most effective since people will be availed with knowledge on how to deal with the infection when attacked again. Radio programmes may be necessary but may not be effective since majority do not have access to radio sets. It is therefore of a necessity that physical contact be made by mobilizing village to village or homestead to homestead. We hope this can be done given the support from local leaders in the various communities as a way of establishing a good working environment.
We intend, where necessary to outsource qualified personnel to deliver health message to the targeted population up to the grassroots through seminars and workshops. Constant monitoring and evaluation will be done by our staff and appropriate remedial measures taken.

The project will be first be implemented in the Busoga region in those areas that our research show need immediate attention and will then spread to whole region. We hope to start any month of 2009 and will continue until we feel the people have the capacity and knowledge to handle their health.

We are calling for Godly hearted people out there to help us with financial and material assistance to enable us fight the rampant spread of jiggers among the local population living in Uganda in the eastern region of Busoga.